Otto Skorzeny

Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German intelligence officer and commando who served as an SS-Obersturmbannführer within the Waffen-SS during the Second World War. Over the course of the conflict, he was implicated in several notable operations, among them the removal from power of the Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy and the raid on Gran Sasso, which secured the liberation of Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny additionally commanded Operation Greif, an initiative in which German personnel infiltrated Allied positions while disguised in enemy uniforms. This latter action subsequently led to his prosecution in 1947 before the Dachau Military Tribunal on charges of violating the 1907 Hague Convention; he was, however, acquitted of these charges.

Following his escape from an internment facility in 1948, Skorzeny sought refuge on a farm in Bavaria and subsequently resided in Salzburg and Paris before ultimately establishing himself in Francoist Spain. In 1953, he assumed the role of military advisor to the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and he is also reported to have served in an advisory capacity to the Argentine president Juan Perón, although this latter claim remains a matter of some historiographical uncertainty. Skorzeny died of lung cancer on 5 July 1975 in Madrid, at the age of sixty-seven.